


Icicle

by mrspollifax



Series: advent calendar 2020 [6]
Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Advent Calendar, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Ficlet, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Texans and their relationship with winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:14:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27929590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrspollifax/pseuds/mrspollifax
Summary: Alex has been watching this icicle form all damn day.
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Series: advent calendar 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2040538
Comments: 15
Kudos: 49





	Icicle

**Author's Note:**

> Advent Calendar Day 6: Icicle

Alex has been watching this icicle form all damn day. A detailed accounting, he thinks, would look something like this:

8:30 am: Alex starts reading the reference material for his paper on immigrant rights that’s due next Wednesday. It’s cold outside. There’s sleet pinging against the window. There’s no icicle to notice yet, but there is a suspicious little bump forming on the frozen branch outside the brownstone’s study window.

9 am: Alex has made an outline for his paper, deleted it, made another, and printed it out for the sole purpose of drawing a giant red  _ X  _ over the entire page. And that’s definitely an icicle out there. Tiny, but menacing.

9:30 am: This reference is useless. Completely, utterly useless. Alex moves on to the next one. Icicles look like demon fingernails from some kind of snowbound hell.

10 am: Alex might be making more progress on this paper if he could stop wondering if there’s a way to make an icicle strong enough to use as a murder weapon. Then the evidence would melt, and no one would know he’d done away with the pompous idiot who’d written this rambling, pointless book.

10:30 am: The power flickers. Alex has moved on to reference number three. He considers making the icicle an insta but settles for posting updates on his own instead.

11:00 am: June comments with laughing emojis on every one of his updates. She’s in California. Which is rude.

11:30 am: The icicle has grown more than his paper’s word count, although that’s really not much of an achievement. These reference books are completely unhelpful. June posts a picture of herself and their father having brunch on a patio in the sun. Alex doesn’t reply. 

By the time noon rolls around, Alex knows he’s doomed. He downs the remainder of his now-cold coffee, eats the half bagel he’d forgotten about, and heads out of the study to the bedroom. Henry’s sitting in the armchair by the fireplace, one pencil tucked behind his ear while he makes notes with another on the manuscript in his lap. David’s curled up on his feet. 

Alex groans as he heads for the dresser. He pulls on the thermal underwear June gave him for Christmas, finds a turtleneck, and adds a heavy sweater. He glances over at Henry and David again. They look like a warm, cozy royal photoshoot just by  _ accident, _ and that’s even ruder than brunch in California. Except now Henry’s eyebrows are doing that very British thing that means he’s too polite to say he’s decided Alex has lost his mind. 

“Planning a trip to Siberia, love?” he asks instead.

“I have to go to the library,” Alex explains. 

Henry sets his manuscript down on the table beside him. “Alex,” he says in his humoring-the-boyfriend voice, “I know it’s cold out, but the adventure gear might be overkill. It’s barely below freezing.”

Alex shoves his feet into his boots. “I grew up in Texas, your Royal frostiness. More than three snowflakes is grounds for shutting the entire state down. Ice warrants an emergency declaration. Possibly a mobilization of the national guard.”

It’s a valiant attempt, but Henry finally loses his battle to keep a straight face. Alex appreciates that Henry at least has the decency to cover his mouth while he  _ giggles. _

Muffled or not, that’s rude, too. “There’s an icicle outside the study window. It’s like a foot long.”

“The jokes make themselves.”

“I’ll go break it off and murder you with it,” Alex says, pulling on his gloves. “Then I’ll bury you in the snow, and no one will find the body until spring.”

“Are you sure you’re wearing enough layers to withstand the arctic cold?”

“I hate you.”

“In winter, spring, summer, and fall, apparently.” Henry gets up from the chair, dislodging David from his nap, and crosses the room. “I’ll come with you, if you need help fending off the elements.”

“I hate you slightly less now. But you have to stand between me and the wind.”

Henry heads to the closet to retrieve his hat and scarf.

Alex likes the afternoon’s readout better:

1:00 pm: They arrive at the library. There are icicles here, too, on the wrought-iron stairway railing. Alex knocks them off with his gloved fingers out of spite. 

1:30 pm: Alex has retrieved sources he hopes will be less useless than the ones he’d found before. There are no new icicles on the stair rail. Henry holds his hand on the way home.

2pm: Alex dumps his new references on the desk in the study without really noticing the icicle, the window, or anything at all besides Henry’s hands, which are busy removing Alex’s sweater and investigating Alex’s ass.

If instagram cares about what happened to the icicle, it will just have to wait. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on the tumblrs at [tulipsandtesseracts](http://tulipsandtesseracts.tumblr.com)


End file.
